Friday, March 31, 2017

It's interesting to drive over medieval and Roman-era bridges in Europe, then witness reports like these coming out of progressive Not-America:

Atlanta's notoriously tangled commutes were thrown into disarray Friday after a massive fire caused a bridge on Interstate 85 to collapse, completely shutting down the heavily traveled highway through the heart of the city.

Traffic was bumper to bumper on nearby streets as people scrambled to find alternate routes after the fire broke out during rush hour Thursday afternoon. However, officials said no one was hurt despite dramatic images of towering flames and plumes of smoke.

"This is about as serious a transportation crisis as we can imagine," Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said.

As a result of the interstate damage, many commuters in some of Atlanta's densely populated northern suburbs will be forced to find alternate routes or ride public transit for the foreseeable future.

Georgia's top transportation official said there's no way to tell when the highway, which carries 250,000 cars a day, can be safely reopened to traffic in either direction following the collapse in the northbound lanes leading out of the city.

"We will have to continue to evaluate the situation and adjust as we do," Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said. "This incident — make no bones about it — will have a tremendous impact on travel."

McMurry said Friday in a news release that bridge inspectors have determined the southbound lanes of I-85, adjacent to the section that collapsed, also were damaged by the fire and will need to remain closed for the foreseeable future.

It is average IQ that is the prime determinant of what a society will be like. And according to my calculations, the average US IQ has declined by at least eight points since 1965. If you don't maintain your population demographics, both in terms of quantity and quality, your society will decline. And if you don't maintain your infrastructure, it will collapse.

Unfortunately, addressing either problem, let alone actually doing anything to fix them, is presently considered unthinkable. That will change, sooner or later, but how soon it changes will play a significant role in the shape of the eventual outcome.

Forget bridges. The amount of complex industrial infrastructure that can have very nasty consequences when it fails is terrifying when I think of how few people are actually able to maintain it and how few people plan on timelines long enough to properly maintain it.

This is sad. Just so sad. Not the fact that a single bridge was taken out of commission, who cares, but the fact that one bridge was SO CRITICAL to the transportation infrastructure of what - 2 million people? One d*mned bridge shuts the whole thing down?

Today, in Wisconsin where I live and work, Charter Communications had a major phone system failure when (apparently) somebody damaged a fiber optic cable during excavation. Again - one d*mned cable knocks out the phone service for 3 million people?

I still remember stories of people from Eastern Bloc countries where they would talk about the power going off, the phones being knocked out, the water not working all the time, and how that was ordinary and so contrasted with America, where the infrastructure had enough redundancy that these things rarely happened. There is no redundancy anymore, for reasons that are manifold I'm sure. Does Flint have clean water yet? Good grief we are in decline.

We complain about it now, but the reality is for several generations we haven't built stuff meant to last like the Romans and Medieval Europeans did. Not that that contradicts the statement of the OP, rather, it compounds the problem.

We had the same thing happen last year here in Columbus.... fuel tanker wrecked under an interstate bridge, cooking it. They waved the normal red-tape, and did an emergency replacement in one weekend, and are now in the process of putting in a permanent structure. The sad thing is, some of us started asking: "If they can do this in one weekend, why the hell cant we do this all the time?!?" Evidently, this was too much logic for the powers that be to process...

4. Grayman March 31, 2017 11:12 AMForget bridges. The amount of complex industrial infrastructure that can have very nasty consequences when it fails is terrifying when I think of how few people are actually able to maintain it and how few people plan on timelines long enough to properly maintain it.

As long as the Taggart Comet keeps running from coast to coast though, I guess we'll be alright.

We have devolved to instant gratification. Redundancy in complex systems has been removed to save on cost. And there is virtually no planning beyond the next financial quarterly or annual report.

The markets currently punish companies for attempting to plan on long term time horizons. And I'd suggest that is in large part attributable to globalization. If you are part of the "global community" and not of a nation or local community there is little incentive to plan long term locally.

Simply letting things crumble is bad enough, but things are worse. Progressives are actively eating away at design margins everywhere. Transportation systems, water supply, energy production - there isn't one area of industry that's not under constant attack and hamstringing. Not one. They want us all to be peasant yeoman villagers sitting before a hearth (with no firewood).

There once was an excellent TV series on the History channel called Modern Marvels that covered infrastructure, mining, salt, metals, etc etc. The engineers and technicians that run and maintain these systems are almost always 100% white and middle-aged. Unless this show was hiding the young white apprentices off camera we are going to be f*cked in the years to come.

How's that Chocolate City moniker working out for Atlanta now, sh*t gets real when Dontavius is too busy getting his freak on to learn the finer knowledge of manufacturing pre-stressed concrete bridge beams.

The Romans could build roads that are still used today and yet we have to repave/replace our roads every 2 or 3 years????We have effectively become a global population of crack whores just looking for the next fix.

This is what happens when you use the area under a critical highway as a "warehouse" for flammable materials and then allow crazy homeless people, dindus, and foreign invaders to roam freely through said warehouse.

You should see the functional retards running your municipal water systems. The people who "run" them are little more than trained monkeys. There are small groups of engineering firms that actually know what they are doing.

The good thing about WWIII is the garbage infrastructure will crumble in short order.... Then we can rebuild properly.

The Pennsylvania-New Jersey turnpike connector bridge recently had to be closed to make repairs after a two inch wide crack appeared in a steel beam. The bridge actually settled 2 inches by the time someone noticed the problem. Chris Christie was on hand to stress test the bridge after the repairs were completed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Laaco2sMM

VD, I think you're being a little too critical from afar. You are allowing a press piece, ( written by normal vapid reporters ), less than 24 hours after the event with quotes from officials who have only the most speculative things to say. Reporters ALWAYS look for hooks and angles to emphasize delays or "oh my", etc. I betcha dollars to donuts, Georgia Hwy folks will have a 30 day plan ready within a day. All it takes is money. They'll find the money. 3 shifts, 24 hours a day, it can get fixed .

In the DFW area, we had a tanker explode under a hwy bridge a year or so ago that baked it. They did what I'm suggesting above and the span was replaced faster than a month. For a interstate hwy in a major city, this will get high priority and I do not think a one-off , weird fire, really speaks to the IQ in the US or our highways. But I appreciate what it must look like from afar.

When you see stuff , ( like that bridge here or the one in Atlanta ) get rapidly repaired, you realize just how fast stuff CAN get done here , and correctly, IF the damn red tape gets pushed aside AND money is made available. No , you obviously can't do that everywhere all the time b/c there are too many road projects all over the country. And too... the US has some of the best highways and some that are kept up. But you can drive about everywhere here and that's awesome. MAGA

Nate wrote:While I get the gist of all of this... this is completely unfair criticism.

Steel melts. A bridge here in Alabama had to be completely rebuilt after a fire rendered the steel to weak to hold.

This has nothing to do with bridges in bad shape or disrepair or poorly designed. Degrading IQ (while absolutely happening) doesn't have anything to do with it.

But degrading IQ helps contribute to creeping corruption. Corruption leads to unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. Those two things make it so that there is a choke point in your transportation system that has no available redundancy if it fails. It also ensures that no emergency repair plans are in place for said choke points and that it will take years to repair that choke-point.

When the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis about 10 years ago, it was found that the gusset plates that connect the steel girders were 1/2" thick instead of the specified 1" thick. This mistake was made in the 1960s, but redundancy kept that bridge up. It took stockpiling repair materials on the bridge plus normal July traffic to bring it down.

We do have a lot of critical infrastructure issues. Power grid vulnerability is a big one.

Of course, those old Roman bridges are built of stone on stone. We could build elevated interstate segments that way, but it would cost a whole lot more and take much longer. It would be manly work, though.

". Corruption leads to unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. Those two things make it so that there is a choke point in your transportation system that has no available redundancy if it fails. It also ensures that no emergency repair plans are in place for said choke points and that it will take years to repair that choke-point. "

Except that is not happening. As I said we got our bridge fixed.. and I am talking about a huge suspension bridge... in weeks when it was predicted to talk months. The other commenter mentions the same thing in DFW.

@13 What roads get repaved is completely political in some States, for example Michigan. Contractors and labor unions are large political donors, but they don't donate without some goodies being thrown their way. I have seem highways repaved that were in immaculate condition...

Nate wrote:". Corruption leads to unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. Those two things make it so that there is a choke point in your transportation system that has no available redundancy if it fails. It also ensures that no emergency repair plans are in place for said choke points and that it will take years to repair that choke-point. "

Except that is not happening. As I said we got our bridge fixed.. and I am talking about a huge suspension bridge... in weeks when it was predicted to talk months. The other commenter mentions the same thing in DFW.

Lets make a prediction. This ATL bridge is up in running in days.

It's possible, but there is also the example of the Sherman Minton bridge which took 6 months to get back up and running.

@26 Very true regarding Michigan. Although, me and a buddy pointed out it's typically easy to point out a Deathocrat district by the quality of the roads. Wayne County? Terrible streets and roads. Northern Michigan? Somehow a lot better despite the weather and "less money."

There was a lot of "Clinton Accounting" going on in Michigan too. Sure, the state would contract out, say, 10 million to update roads and bridges, but only 2 million or so would be spent...hmmm...the rest just, uh, REPBULICANDS ARE TEH EVUL AND FLINT

Califuckingfornia also has bad infrastructure. Gov. Moonbeam (Jerry Brown) wants to spend $64 billion on the bullshit train, which won't even be able to run at full speed over the Grapevine into SoCal, even if it is built; while neglecting roads and especially dams and water management. This is the idiot the libs voted in after Schwarzenegger turned out to be the dud he was. Moonbeam was bad enough in the late 1970's. He's even worse this time around.

Did I also mention that CALPERS, the state workers' retirement fund, is technically bankrupt to the tune of $500 billion in unfunded liabilities? CA recently passed increased gasoline taxes with the money supposed to go to road repair. Well guess what? That money went into the general fund instead and now is going into CALPERS.

As long as the Taggart Comet keeps running from coast to coast though, I guess we'll be alright.

I see I'm not the only one reminded of that book these days. Just as in that story, these things creep up on people, and failures that once would have been unthinkable become accepted and shrugged off. "Who is John Galt?"

I've taken to buying tools and household equipment at farm auctions in recent years, and the superior quality of items made 20, 30, 50 years ago is striking. It's not just that they went from metal to plastic, but that the metals and plastics have both become flimsier. Of course, that's largely because of Chinese imports, but it shows a stark difference in what Americans consider acceptable quality and failure rates. It's no surprise if our infrastructure starts to be as cheap as our appliances.

We have devolved to instant gratification. Redundancy in complex systems has been removed to save on cost. And there is virtually no planning beyond the next financial quarterly or annual report.

The markets currently punish companies for attempting to plan on long term time horizons. And I'd suggest that is in large part attributable to globalization. If you are part of the "global community" and not of a nation or local community there is little incentive to plan long term locally.

Yes, this is certainly true. Another contributing factor is how the entire stock market of the Banana Empire is forced through a Manhattan Island gateway controlled by the (((usual suspects))). The giant mutual funds whose stated objective is for long-term growth are likewise under the management of the same small cabal which includes the (((usual suspects))) plus some Gracchite white traitors such as Mittens the Underwear Bankster. In such a rigged market, companies who even wanted to take a long-term view are locked out of investors. The only companies immune from such manipulation are those which are entirely in private hands. Yet again, we see another opportunity to create an alternative market and network.

I see small towns that have only 1 or 2 aging public works guys that run and maintain everything and have no young guys to train, because the cost is prohibitive, as so much is diverted to meet a state's version of the Department of Ecology. Their ratepayers can't afford much in the way of utility rates, so the system that was built with free money in the 30's and 40's languishes until a USDA loan has to be applied for, as a new system will cost in the millions with current contracting rules.

So give those "monkeys" a break, because there's a bigger gorilla on their back.

Part of it is graft, I'm sure. As someone who's worked for DOT for nearly 30 years and has been involved with all aspects of design and construction I can tell you there's a minimum standard for road and bridge construction established by FHWA (Federal HighWay Administration) since the highways and such are considered a part of the civil defense network they are designed to be pretty robust. Now with that said it doesn't mean shit if you can't/won't maintain it. I've also noticed that the designs produced by the engineers now, while more elegant looking and complicated (undoubtedly due to design software as opposed to old school calculations) they just don't seem to be as robust or have as much material as the old structures, so while they fulfill the mandate of adhering to the minimum, that's what you get, the bare minimums. Another reason I think is due to the old engineers started out working for DOT as trainees, working their way up through the ranks, then going to school and becoming engineers. They actually understood how things got built. Now it's Sanjeep, Mohammed, Kumar, and Karim; fresh off the boat, barely speaking English, from a country where their idea of infrastructure is having a river function as your water, sewer and transportation. But hey, they can do the math and study to the test and they'll work for 60k a year so it's all good.

Yes, there are some good people out there but in my area more often then not they are trained monkeys.I don't disagree with you in general, we have systemic rot, from top to bottom and are seeing the effects popping up at all levels within the system, like cancer that has gone systemic.

Its also the classic lowest bidder approach. To win the contract you have to minimize materials used and find a way to meet the design specs. The end result is something that meets design specs but is not particularly robust.

Its systemic decay of society. Look at modern housing. A "modern" house built of gypsum board, 2x4's, and plywood will be lucky to last 50 years without significant upkeep, yet we are capable of building ICF (insulated concrete forms) and similar homes that would last hundreds of years easily. The cost difference is about 3% to 5% between the two approaches.

@36 Exactly! I just heard this morning that Moonbeam wants an additional $.12/gallon tax to pay for infrastructure improvements. WTF! We already have the most expensive gas in the country thanks to state taxes, lets add another $.12 on. Nobody will notice. Fu** you!

I'm eating lunch, reading this, and on a conference call where the reading level of a disaster planning document is being discussed. FedGov speaker says it must be at a 5th grade level. We are already past the Idiocracy level extinction event.

A small team of 20 or so people could turn Manhattan apocalyptic virtually overnight.

Food infrastructure down, power and water down, transport down.....

Thats 1.5 million people suddenly stuck on an island with limited or no power, water, or food, and limited avenues to leave.

A few fires from riots or anything else and it starts looking very ,much like "escape from new york" in 48 hours or less.

If the individuals dont care about walking away from the mission there isnt much you can do to stop them. The saving grace is that it would take higher IQ people who can plan in a coordinated fashion and execute.... unlikely to be Mohammedans.

In fact, its an indication of increased IQ and improved engineering capability that result in the modern steel bridge design -- do you have any idea how many bridges you would have if they were all built like a roman bridge -- about 5.

Now does the US infrastructure require upgrading - yes .. but the cause is not spending the money that is needed to be spent on this -- its traditionally people in your camp that are against taxes which pay for roads. Romans didn't have this tax issue - So I find this whole criticism to be the misplaced.

Tell me about it! Thomas Edison figured that out 100 years ago. A friend of mines Dad was a contractor trying to build concrete houses with these cool foam forms by Dow. You could follow the UBC and do it reasonably, but since it was "new technology" the county wanted them built like RCBs (Reinforced Concrete Box, the box culverts you see draining water under many highways) needless to say you can't make any money building a regular house to the standards of a bomb shelter. Stupid bureaucrats (yes, I see the irony)!

Well, Prof, I don't know too many people who are against taxes for roads, but do oppose taxes that provide bread and circuses to the mutant underclass to buy their borderline and inconsistent good behavior.

@46 "I've also noticed that the designs produced by the engineers now, while more elegant looking and complicated (undoubtedly due to design software as opposed to old school calculations) they just don't seem to be as robust or have as much material as the old structures, so while they fulfill the mandate of adhering to the minimum, that's what you get, the bare minimums."

That is because earlier bridges were over built for the requirements -- for someone who has been in the field for 30 years you should know this, or you shouldn't be commenting.

When they used to design with slide rules, you had to carry more margins - and yet you still made mistakes. Tacoma narrows - that was one of these nice hand calculation bridges you seem so found of.

Engineers design to requirements defined by programs, funding, politicians and accountants -- don't malign the engineering world because modern capitalism can fund a proper bridge.

"Well, Prof, I don't know too many people who are against taxes for roads, but do oppose taxes that provide bread and circuses to the mutant underclass to buy their borderline and inconsistent good behavior."

But that our infrastructure needs constant attention and maintenance is a truism that used to be respected in our better days.

The California Dam is a better example of what happens when women, manginas, and low IQ minorities get control of a state's pursestrings. More money for handouts and feel-good social programs. Inanimate man-made structures are just scenery to leftists who mistakenly believe they will just "always be there."

Rand's Atlas Shrugged is indeed instructive here, lots of little vignettes on how catastrophe occurs because little things like an unseen cable snaps somewhere, due to neglect.

No space exploration for you cold hearted greedy capitalists either, not as long as there are hungry mouths to feed! Think of the children!

Oh, it's happening, especially in areas like Atlanta. However, the decisions won't be made in Atlanta, as this is an Interstate. They'll be made at the state Dept. of Highways (or whatever the equivalent is in Georgia) and implemented by them. Emergency repairs will happen within weeks and full repairs within months.

> CA recently passed increased gasoline taxes with the money supposed to go to road repair. Well guess what? That money went into the general fund instead and now is going into CALPERS.

Of course. They always do that. All demanded budget cuts will come from the schools and police. All budget increases will actually go to the politically expedient, no matter what the claims were. Just always vote no to any increase. They'll ram them through somehow in spite of your vote.

> ...yet we are capable of building ICF (insulated concrete forms) and similar homes that would last hundreds of years easily.

The Ilk might be interested in this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/3d-printer-house-mars-slums_n_4639046.html

Apologies for HuffPo link, but archive.is seems to be having problems today.

Prog Civil Eng. "Don't blame me, it's all you right wingers who ruin everything. It's all about me and I know everything because I am an expert!"

Get a clue. The taxes for infrastructure argument is extremely tired. If the government was truly interested in roads and bridges they would be pristine considering the size of the Fed, State and local budgets in this country. They instead squander the money on social engineering. "Infrastructure projects" have turned into programs to pay their buddies or try to force people to stop driving cars and use mass transit instead.

Bridges, roads, dams, .. some of the most amazing modern engineering marvels. You guys who make you lives writing code or building little electronic gadgets don't appreciate the grand scale and rewarding results of one of the oldest professions out side of prostitution. Even visit the Boulder Dam ? I would like to see the damn Romans build a dam like that; heck even the Egyptians couldn't do that.

And your crazy leaders thought they could attack russia? Consider 50 russian operatives (seriously underestimating here) doing smart sabotage and the ruskies will be laughing as you retreat. Same with chinese.

@52 Grayman... Agreed. Hell, one man with an angle grinder could probably cripple most major cities.

I always recall how workmen drilled a few inches too deep in the river and flooded downtown Chicago. Filled up old forgotten tunnels and then basements. The financial district was even closed for a time.

"You guys who make you lives writing code or building little electronic gadgets don't appreciate" ...

Bravo, you scaled up with new materials and technology. Fascinating.

Our mere conceiving, designing, and building of new inventions which are beyond your comprehension is nothing compared to the accomplishments of an interchangeable midwit like yourself employing evolutionary improvements to millennia-old methods that someone else conceived of.

I'd suggest the reason is cultural and economic. The people who generally have the ability and will to pull it off are better off playing nice in society at this point. While there is a lot of turmoil boiling under the surface the vast majority of whites in the west have not given up on society yet. That could shift quickly once the economic ponzi crashes, but we aren't there yet.

Mohammedans behead a few hundred people in a city, set of car bombs in market places. The west firebombed Dresden, Tokyo, and Nagasaki to intentionally obliterate civilian population.

"Let me get this straight. A fire of such magnitude that it collapsed an Interstate bridge and as of Friday afternoon no one knows what caused it?"

i can't say about that. I can say when it happen on i-65 everyone knew why and how. not days or weeks after.. but before the fire was even completely out the inspectors where there and they knew simply by looking the spans were shot.

@Achilles:They say April 13, 1992 was the most productive day the Thompson Bldg. (State of Illinois offices) ever saw:http://www.trbimg.com/img-4f8848e7/turbine/chi-hist-new-150yrp256b20090406112122/350/350x197

Both the Russians and Iranians have said that if the US ever engaged them they will use small sleeper teams to take out pipelines, power grid etc and shut down the nation in days.

Pipelines are a whole other ball of wax, almost as bad as the power grid... I believe it recently came out that there are only 3 pipeline locations you would have to hit to shut down most gasoline supply to the northeast and much of the east coast.

Definitely a decline in IQ.The fire and damage was caused because the Department of Transportation stored TONS of HIGHLY flammable material under a bridge. I thought that was against the law???This wasn't an 'accident' this was some moron engaging in a wanton disregard for property and human life. Anyone who thought this wouldn't happen, isn't familiar with cause and effect.

One place where massed low IQ kicks in for these instances is in the immediate recovery. As long as you don't have too many 80 IQ people doing stupid stuff like wrecking while trying to get out of the jam or freezing up more than one lane for no reason, a mob of hundreds of thousands averaging, say, an IQ of 105 will gradually self-alleviate the pressure. 100? They'll patiently await the systemic resolution. 95? They'll make it worse.

Some counties around ATL lost half of their white population since 1990 census. It does not matter where it happens, post-colonial Africa or urban America - wherever white flight occurs, corruption and ruins follow. In Flint, mayor stole monies that were to be used to upgrade water system. In NO, money for maintenance of levies vanished too. California faced a flood when a 40 year-old dam was almost overwhelmed by rain water . No new dams were built since 1960s and CA which had until recently suffered from a severe drought allowed billions of gallons rain water simply to flow away into Pacific. With no water left behind dams that were never built, drought will return within months. Africa is worse off than it was in 1960s when most of the continent gained independence. Corruption and general stupidity led to civilizational collapse. Who could’ve imagined than water & electricity supplies in Nigeria or Ghana would need constant maintenance? Even worse, locals often cut water pipes and electrical wires and sell it for scrap. In US, they steal manhole covers and light poles. Nothing changed despite 300 years of living among whites.

Mayor MOHAMMED Kasim Reed... the same man who ran the Braves out the City of Atlanta to Marietta. The local radio hosts are announcing a 6 months time frame. And locals suspect that the fire was arson.

The Romans had their fair share of engineering disasters too. We just don't notice them because they were rebuilt hundreds of years ago.

I once met a man who's firm sent him to an unnamed African country. His job was to estimate what had to be done to rebuild their wreck of a railway.

He claimed that he got about half of their disabled engines/locomotives working again by replacing the fuses.

The local government were not at all pleased. Apparently the minister of transport was looking forward to all the backhanders he would have received if they had to buy a new railway from the west.

I hate to admit it, but tribalism really is the death of public service. When a nation breaks down into tribes there really isn't a nation left to serve. And without a strong sense of public service corruption just becomes rampant.

The Romans were far from perfect, but they were able to produce great infrastructure. They were able to do this as Rome had an identity. It was source of pride, and therefore political gain, to furnish her with great works.

Our average IQ decline may not have caused the bridge failure in such an obvious manner as a design or construction defect, but it was probably at least somewhat responsible for the bridge collapse indirectly. Storing flammable materials under a vital bridge, allowing vagrants to roam freely around them, and paying jihadis to move into your nation are not intelligent decisions, and obviously less intelligent people are less likely to anticipate possible consequences of their actions.

That said, the "PVC caught on fire" story doesn't make sense to me. It just isn't that easy to get PVC burning so I don't see this fire starting accidentally. Despite the early denials I believe we're going to find out soon that this one was arson or terrorism.

This just proves that a couple boxes of tacks could shut down traffic for days in most DieVerse Cities. I have drank from still working roman aqueducts but Africa needs Whites to fly to it in order to dig wells.

Prof Civil Eng wrote:When they used to design with slide rules, you had to carry more margins - and yet you still made mistakes. Tacoma narrows - that was one of these nice hand calculation bridges you seem so found of.

Now Professor, with all due respect, you're cherry picking a bit with that one. They didn't quite understand the consequences of aerodynamic flutter back then. https://infogalactic.com/info/Galloping_Gertie"Its failure also boosted research in the field of bridge aerodynamics-aeroelastics, the study of which has influenced the designs of all the world's great long-span bridges built since 1940."

Run down the Oregon coast and have a look at the beautiful bridges of https://infogalactic.com/info/Conde_McCullough A tough environment, yet they're all still there.

Cail Corishev wrote:As long as the Taggart Comet keeps running from coast to coast though, I guess we'll be alright.

I've taken to buying tools and household equipment at farm auctions in recent years, and the superior quality of items made 20, 30, 50 years ago is striking. It's not just that they went from metal to plastic, but that the metals and plastics have both become flimsier. Of course, that's largely because of Chinese imports, but it shows a stark difference in what Americans consider acceptable quality and failure rates. It's no surprise if our infrastructure starts to be as cheap as our appliances.

I urge my readers to buy antique tools. I have a solid, cast-steel garden hoe that's probably 80 years old I bought from an antique shop for $15. It's worn down to 2/3 its original size and still cuts through weeds like butter. Holds an edge like a knife. It'll probably still be usable when I'm gone.

so with 85 NB/SB out of use for months, 400 becomes irrelevant, leaving only one NB/SB artery to downtown - 75.

And, the geniuses just put the new Braves stadium (paid for by taxpayer money, unwillingly) right at the busiest point on 75, where 285, the loop road that those who usually would take 85/400, need to now use to get to 75.

Steel does melt, of course, but I suspect that the real issue is the heat of the fire ruining the heat-treating that the steel receives.

There are hundreds of different types of steel with different ratios of iron to carbon and at least a half dozen other elements. Then, on top of that, the steel is subjected to very precise heat and cooling to create different properties in the steel that you need. Structural steel is subjected to a different heat treatment than the steel in your kitchen knives.

While the fire might not liquify the metal, it may heat it up enough for it to loose the properties that it was designed to have, making it dangerous.

***

While we could certainly make more permanent structures, and often at nearly equivalent costs, we don't do that because Houses are increasingly driven by style and fashion.

People in twenty years aren't going to want to live in my suburban McMansion house, they'll tear it down and build something that they want instead.

In the 1950's and 60's, people tended to build houses with smaller rooms, but more rooms. Today, people want open floor plans.

A dedicated "media room" is fairly recent addition to your typical upper middle class house, as are "outdoor kitchens." In ten years, media rooms may be replaced with VR pods or something else or they'll want the transformer house that turns into a fortress to keep out the enrichment.

Personally, I think that 3D printing in construction is going to be the next big thing and what even modest people can afford in terms of architectural features are going to be pretty amazing.

Grayman March 31, 2017 11:28 AMYou should see the functional retards running your municipal water systems. The people who "run" them are little more than trained monkeys. There are small groups of engineering firms that actually know what they are doing.

Yeah, uh-huh. I've worked with some of those engineering firms and licensed PEs who know what they're doing. In boiler and HVAC systems, not water systems. Simple things, with instructions, they should know. Like, for example, outside air temperature sensors (north of the equator) should be mounted on the north side of the building, at least 12 inches away. Not on the west side of the building in the airstream of an exhaust vent. The system just doesn't work as designed when that's where the temperature sensor is located. I could go on with another dozen simple things found wrong in one facility.

Have a project going on where I work now. So far, the Navy educated operators without degrees have found pumps and steam strainers installed incorrectly but according to design specs drawn by professional licensed engineers. I don't have aa much faith in professional engineering firms as I should have due to experience.

I wonder what the timeline is for kicking the homeless camp out and trucking all that PVC and stuff in there... Say, if you got the boot, and then kinda hung around... them maybe after awhile one of your buddies says, " we found a way into that area under our favorite bridge." So, they move back and start fires for warmth and live in PVC stacks... ?? OR... maybe they are pissed off and drink a few bottles of hooch and then like urban hobo ninjas... sneaks in and they light it up cause they're mad and sometimes you just want to see the PVC pile burn. heh

There is another reason: the cities and states are spending so much of their money on bloated bureaucracies and gold plated public sector pensions that they have little left to spend on infrastructure and public services. I see it even in my own small city which is crumbling to pieces. Anyone else seeing this where they live or work?

I'm not an IQ fetishist. After all, China has one of the highest average IQs in the world and crazy shit like this happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=993wlZ6XFSs

So there are other factors at work as well when it comes to producing reasonable western-style infrastructure and safety expectations. But that doesn't mean IQ (I suspect a minimum IQ) isn't a big part of the equation.

I'd be surprised if it was terrorism. The standard brown/black terrorist likes flashy targets for emotional impact. They don't usually go for "strategic" targets. And to really maximize the bring incident you'd need follow up operations planned.I could see it being malicious, a pissed off DOT guy or hobo.

Noah B The MacroAggressor wrote:Our average IQ decline may not have caused the bridge failure in such an obvious manner as a design or construction defect, but it was probably at least somewhat responsible for the bridge collapse indirectly. Storing flammable materials under a vital bridge, allowing vagrants to roam freely around them...

That said, the "PVC caught on fire" story doesn't make sense to me...

If that turns out to be true, it's an exemplary case of Convergence. Here's another one from 1990, with whirling computers aplenty-

https://infogalactic.com/info/Lacey_V._Murrow_Memorial_Bridge

... while under construction, the original bridge sank because of a series of SJW errors and decisions. The process started because the bridge needed resurfacing and was to be widened... The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) decided to use hydrodemolition (high-pressure water) to remove unwanted material (the sidewalks on the bridge deck). Water from this hydrodemolition was considered contaminated under SJW law and could not be allowed to flow into Lake Washington. Engineers then analyzed the pontoons of the bridge, and realized that, hey!, they were over-engineered (who'da thunk?) and the water could be stored temporarily in the pontoons, because everybody knows that the inside of a boat is the perfect place to store any unwanted, excess water that you might have laying around. The watertight doors for the pontoons were therefore removed since they were just totally like unnecessary...

Something to remember every time folks get all depressed about end times. Yes, there will be violence, but the fact is, anywhere blacks are at--they will absolutely crumble like this bridge. They could not coordinate handing out free water bottles, let alone being resourceful enough to support any large effort to survive, let alone fight whites. Every one of those major US cities that are majority black, will be engaged in mass chaos and death once any real cultural rapture starts.

"It is average IQ that is the prime determinant of what a society will be like"

Has this pattern been studied in nations which are not democracies?One would think the further removed the average person is from the levers of power, the more resilient the functionality of government would be to drops in average IQ.

DemonicProfessorEl wrote:@36 California's roads are terrible. I was there a few years ago and noted they were worse than even Michigan's and Illinois's. And they don't even have the cold winters to fall back on as an excuse.

California hasn't done this yet but was considering stopping all road funding for new roads an moving it buses and trains in order to force people to use public transit

The only reason they haven't gone gung ho there is the threat of even more capital flight and the State frankly can't lose too much more especially with Trump in office since he won't bail them out.

"It is average IQ that is the prime determinant of what a society will be like" Has this pattern been studied in nations which are not democracies?

How about every sparsely populated white colony in Africa that got flooded with migration once nice things got built? Apartheid South Africa's biggest problem was illegal immigration from placed ruled by blacks. The original inhabitants of SA were brown hottentots genocided by Zulus so the Zulus could get whitey's castoffs.

The Romans built things in weeks that last thousands of years. In the early eighties I watched a six week job take three years then they immediately redid it. A simple widening of the high way for ten rural miles out my way recently took years and years. Romans would have had it done in as many weeks.

That's the state. Contrast that with our county and they will have slides taken care of in hours. If they need to get the feds involved it takes years if not decades.

@77 again. Googled it up. Not near Decatur but much further south. Obviously you are protective of some folks. Anyone that interested can do what I did. Yeah, that area down there is bad news if you get caught on those long spans across the swamps. I grew up down there.

"Googled it up. Not near Decatur but much further south. Obviously you are protective of some folks. Anyone that interested can do what I did. Yeah, that area down there is bad news if you get caught on those long spans across the swamps. I grew up down there. "

They are my people. but I called like I saw it. We were told the bridge was gonna be out for damn near a year. It was way... way less.

what is ignored or overlooked are the thousands of bridges that don't collapse..the fact this is such big news speaks to its rarity. need to put things in perspective. Given a the bridges and the millions of vehicle that cor them everyday, such event are statistically inevitable.

Sorry, Ryan - was focused on your phrase that the stadium was placed near busiest point on I75. Having been stuck in traffic many times, for hours before 10 miles outta downtown, I assumed must be nearer downtown, my error. (I dread having to drive there from Kentucky).

That they put the stadium in the suburbs is a glimmer of hope. Off the bus line? Are we winning more than I thought?

Shoulda been put further out. Forsythe county would have been... an interesting spot.

@81 "Let me get this straight. A fire of such magnitude that it collapsed an Interstate bridge and as of Friday afternoon no one knows what caused it?A bridge. Not a refinery or a fireworks factory or a paper mill or a lumber yard, a bridge. A concrete and steel bridge.And no one has a clue?"

Photo of the early fire: they were storing a LOT of 55-gal drums UNDER the bridge -- I'd assume from the massive black smoke -- filled with some petroleum product (road tar?)

@145 Yes. This. I remember well. That causeway could be a mess. Some back story. I went into Mobile during hurricane Fredrick. We crossed the causeway from Spanish Fort next morning and, by some miracle made it to the I65 tunnel. It was surreal to see that tunnel mouth a swiming pool. Whole tunnel flooded. Producer said aw s... we needed to get into Mobile. I, having grown up there, said not to worry. Took us up the river road seven miles or so and crossed the old bridge whose name escapes me. We got there in time to tape all the looting downtown. Not so much looting, if any, outside the city because the well armed rednecks of Alabama were on duty. Hoo rah.

One thing to remember about the Romans: a huge percentage of their population were slaves. That meant lots of almost free labor. They could also conscript non-citizens when they pleased to get things done.

@147 "Shoulda been put further out. Forsythe county would have been... an interesting spot."

No no NO! We want to return Forsyth to its origin as a sun-downer county! Sun goes down, blacks bettah be way OUTTA our county!! No sportsball up heah; y'all can keep down there near their natural slums!

The road collapsed due to a fire burning beneath it, not because of chronic neglect.

I find it absurd reading one dwelling in Italy boasting about European infrastructure being superior to that of the US. Cross the border from Italy into Switzerland then you can make that argument. Then, from the US travel to either Canada or Mexico and you can appreciate the quality of typical American infrastructure.

Santa Fe Railway lost the bridge over the Golden State Freeway in Los Angeles due to a gasoline truck fire underneath. The heat softened the steel and it collapsed from it's own weight. We had the bridge demolished and replaced in about two weeks. Private Enterprise.

And, Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown, Guv of California, of California, wants to have a Bullet Train from SF to LA!! Wow, what a dream!!! And now, I saw today that he wants to run for President when he is 82, in 2020!! What audacity and vision!!

And, what a nutcase! But, libbies will vote for him because President Trump is mean!!

153. aew51183 March 31, 2017 4:34 PMJust a note, this is because the romans "lucked" into a self-healing nanomaterial with their concrete formula.

As of 2014 the recipe has been precisely reverse-engineered, though nobody is putting it to any use it seems

I'd give the Romans considerably more credit than luck - engineering does tend to be an iterative process of trial and error generally in the right direction afterall.

No they were not capable of building the boulder dam, it is true. But they were highly capable civil engineers nonetheless, and this fly-ash formulation that they came up with proves that they mastered some aspects of construction far better than we have 2000 years later...

9. Grayman "Redundancy in complex systems has been removed to save on cost. ... The markets currently punish companies for attempting to plan on long term time horizons."

A lot of it is attributable to the corporate tax code and the bean-counter mentality. A friend of mine makes a good living selling heavy industrial equipment replacement parts to plants that gotta have it NOW, because the IRS taxes parts in inventory and company accountants are convinced "just in time" delivery will always be there to save their bacon.

165. Pteronarcyd March 31, 2017 5:21 PMThe road collapsed due to a fire burning beneath it, not because of chronic neglect.

I find it absurd reading one dwelling in Italy boasting about European infrastructure being superior to that of the US. Cross the border from Italy into Switzerland then you can make that argument. Then, from the US travel to either Canada or Mexico and you can appreciate the quality of typical American infrastructure.

Thank you for this. So brave.

The problem is not that a bridge failed due to an unfortunate incident. The problem is that one d*mn bridge blew up the whole road network of Fulton and DeKalb county. That bridge was built in 1953 when Atlanta metro had a population of 1 million people. Now the metro area has a population of 6 million people. Has the infrastructure kept up? Clearly not. Why? Tax revenues are significantly higher than they were in 1953 - where is the money going?

The answer to that question, is why Vox's comments are correct. Instead of buying bridges, we're buying pies for the pie holes of millions of idle people in exchange for votes. There is a strong correlation between pie eaters and IQ. We are subsidizing low-IQ, low-productivity lifestyles, and you get more of what you subsidize.

@Azimus: Not the fact that a single bridge was taken out of commission, who cares, but the fact that one bridge was SO CRITICAL to the transportation infrastructure of what - 2 million people? One d*mned bridge shuts the whole thing down?

That particular bridge (more like elevated freeway) is the intersection where three freeways merge into the downtown. It's the point of entry for about half the Atlanta population. Due to counties declining to have MARTA expanded into them, we have no real public transport of any type and Atlanta has been developed into an autotopia. Everyone is going to have to use surface roads.

There is no redundancy anymore, for reasons that are manifold I'm sure.

Redundancy costs; no one wants to pay the taxes/bills to maintain it. People want it cheap as possible. *shrug* Can't squeeze blood out of a stone.

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@AT: This is what happens when you use the area under a critical highway as a "warehouse" for flammable materials and then allow crazy homeless people, dindus, and foreign invaders to roam freely through said warehouse.

That area underneath has been used as a warehouse for things since the 1980s. You couldn't freely roam through it unless you were inclined to cut through the fences surrounding it. Also, there were workers in and out of the place every day.

As for flammable materials, to quote the GDOT: "McMurry also explained that the area where the fire originated is part of the state’s right of way utilized as a storage location for construction materials, equipment and supplies. The area contained materials such as plastic conduit which is a stable, non-combustible material. This kind of conduit is used for electrical or fiber optic cables. The storage site was a secured area that has been used in this manner for years."

Currently, they're looking to see if there was arson going on. Investigation ongoing, cause unknown.

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@Ominous Cowherd: ``Mayor Kassim Reed ...'' I think I see some of the problem

Nope. He's mayor of Atlanta, but has nothing to do with maintenance of I-85. That's entirely at the state level, the Georgia Department of Transportation. Governor Deal is the man to look at on this one, although there really isn't anything GDOT or Deal could have done to prevent it.

I would have thought malinvestment and low IQ would go together like hoof and mouth.

No, it just requires that you have your eye on the quarterly profits and screw everybody else. Typical corporate strategy.

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@Objective Observer: Let me get this straight. A fire of such magnitude that it collapsed an Interstate bridge and as of Friday afternoon no one knows what caused it?

The cause of the fire? No. No one is sure how the plastic conduit in coils on reels caught fire. It's not combustible, so it probably had to be set. We'll know more after the fire investigation teams are done this weekend.

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@fob: Well, somebody decided it would be a good idea to store tons of flammable PVC under a major bridge.

Again, the plastic conduit is not particularly flammable. Various types of conduit have been stored there for decades.

@J Van Stry: The fire and damage was caused because the Department of Transportation stored TONS of HIGHLY flammable material under a bridge.

No. It was not highly flammable. I don't know why this keeps getting bandied about, but it's simply not so. It was high-density plastic conduit used in fiber-obtic networks. In order for HDPE to catch on fire, you need to get that sucker up to 340°C. The likelihood that an accelerant was used, IMHO, is high.

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@Noah B The Macroagressor: Storing flammable materials under a vital bridge, allowing vagrants to roam freely around them

Again, not highly flammable, and no, there weren't vagrants running around. You had to cut through fences and disable security to get in there. And there were workers there daily.

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@frigger61: That they put the stadium in the suburbs is a glimmer of hope. Off the bus line? Are we winning more than I thought? Shoulda been put further out. Forsythe county would have been... an interesting spot.

Nobody wants to drive to Forsythe.

They put the stadium pretty much at the 75/285 connector, northeast side. No one in Cobb County wanted it there and Cobb County forgot to make parking provisions. Now surrounding towns like Sandy Springs are refusing to have game traffic rerouted through them (rightly so) or allow parking/shuttling. Cobb County is ticked they're on the hook when Turner Field is still viable; also, they didn't want the traffic.

2018 Cobb County elections are going to be seeing a complete turnover of the county government.

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@Avalanche: Photo of the early fire: they were storing a LOT of 55-gal drums UNDER the bridge -- I'd assume from the massive black smoke -- filled with some petroleum product (road tar?)

I am reliably told that the Mobile Phone network in Australia runs at 90% capacity. The message was that during an emergency the network will be overloaded and fail. This happened in New Zealand when they had a devastating earthquake in Christchurch. The authorities asked everyone to communicate via text messages to ensure it ran.

In Singapore the mobile network is owned by the Military and has plenty of spare capacity as it is set up as an integral part of their defence plan. Private citizens get discounted access but of course should the military require it citizens lose get reduced access (or get surveyed).

I support mobile phone networks being national infrastructure like roads.

For those actually interested in infrastructure in the US. The American Society of Civil Engineers ( http://www.asce.org/ ) puts out periodic report cards on US infrastructure. The last one I saw rated the country at a D+. That sounds really bad until you understand that it's an upgrade from previous reports going down as low as D-.

In short, the situation is really bad but getting better.

There is nothing stopping anybody from assembling a dataset of all infrastructure in the country, it's maintenance schedules, and setting up a private watchdog system. In fact, it's on my list of things to do (being a solo startup makes progress go slow).

Right now I'm a fairly new transplant in Charleston, SC. People are complaining about the flooding. Virtually nobody went through the city's budget plan and noted that cleaning and maintaining flood prevention features like ditches, catch basins, etc only had a goal of being maintained within the month it was scheduled and only 7 times in 10. The actual performance for 2016 was 26%.

That's the difference between asphalt and cobble stone. Have you driven over cobblestone? I have, it's not pleasant. Asphalt simply makes a more pleasant driving surface, the downside is that it is not as durable.

But this only strengthens Voxs point, because when you get right down to it civilization is imposing an unnatural state upon nature. The more advanced the society the more unnatural it is which requires that much more effort to makntain. It require more care to maintain a cobblestone road than a dirt path and so on and so forth.

Again, the plastic conduit is not particularly flammable. Various types of conduit have been stored there for decades.

HDPE/PVC may not be easily ignitable, but they are highly combustible at elevated temperatures. The key issue is that providing an arsonist with an easy opportunity to cripple vital infrastructure isn't a very bright thing to do.

Come on man have some balls and take Nate bet. As someone who lives managing large scale construction I happen to agree with him. Large scale projects aren't like your residential guys, you don't just go to Home Depot and pick guys off of the truck. You get tradesmen.

@107 Noah B The MacroAggressor That said, the "PVC caught on fire" story doesn't make sense to me. It just isn't that easy to get PVC burning so I don't see this fire starting accidentally. Despite the early denials I believe we're going to find out soon that this one was arson or terrorism.---

My WAG is that it will turn out to be some homeless were out there having a campfire and it got out of control. There have been a lot of stories over recent years of squatters and such burning down vacant houses.

@187 Good pic. Those are rolls of flexible HDPE pipe. That kind of pipe is usually installed during boring/horizontal directional drilling to provide conduit for cable/fiber optic lines to be pulled through.

As a person actually working in the industry...don't be willfully stupid. You betray a lack of understanding of ancient Roman taxation issues and your hyperbole is terrible. You try, and fail, to and draw and erroneous conclusion, none of the ill or the right have expressed disdain for collecting taxes to maintain infrastructure. What hey don't like, anf you ignore, are glamorized ego projects that have limited practical utility and obscenely high cost such as high speed rail. Then here is the fact that the US has wasted hundreds billions of dollars overseas in various forms that could have better been spent home.

It's in construction too and I fucking hate it. Invariably something happens, a shortage, a port shut down or someone just forgetting to hit yet order button by s day and the lead time jumps up by weeks. We then end up spending a shit ton of money to either expedite the product or find an alternative. At some point when my current project completed I am going to do an analysis and see if we would've come it a head renting a storage yard near the project.